Shadows of a Sister
by Mandy of the Amoeba
Summary: The rating is for death, and for one word. Told by a Professor after the death of her sister. I don't really like the title but couldn't come up with a better one.


A/N; OKay, I KNOW this is......an extremely weird fic.  I don't know what made me write it.  Well, I sort of do.  I wanted to write a songfic to "Girl" by Tori Amos, but I couldn't decide who to use as characters, no matter how hard I thought.  I finally decided that I wanted to use two sisters, but the only pair that really came to mindwas Lily and Petunia, and that wouldn't have worked with the fic I had in mind.  So I just started writing and playing with ideas, and.....this is what came about.  You don't find out who the characters are until the end, and it may come as...a bit of a surprise to some of you.  Kind reviews and constructive criticism are always welcome, but flames will be used to light candles with.  Oh, I just own the concept.  Tori Amos owns the song, J.K. Rowling owns all related characters.  And yes, I am aware that I cut out the last lyric of the song; I just finished the fic too early for it. _  
  
  
  
From in the shadow she calls   
And in the shadow she finds a way   
Finds a way  
And in the shadow she crawls   
Clutching her faded photograph   
My image under her thumb  
Yes, with a message for my heart  
Yes, with a message for my heart _  
  
  
I can see the blood stained ground, the shadows cast by black clouds of dust made by explosions, explosions caused by wands in duels.  Close my eyes.  Shut it out.  But it doesn't go away.  Over a decade has passed, but it won't ever go away.....  
  
I remember when they first found her.  When we found her.  I was with the search party as we tried in vain to locate some remaining souls amid all the ruin, a single breath of life somewhere in the foul stench of death.  And we found life.  We found her, yet there was just enough time to hear her weak cry of help, to see her hand reach up towards us, then she collapsed and was still.  No one said a word as I knelt down beside her, prying her fist open to reveal a photograph clutched between the pale, thin fingers.    
  
I still don't know why she had that picture with her at the time, why she clutched it in her last moments.  I had stared at the two little girls in the picture for an eternity, trying to stop the tears rapidly filling my eyes as I watched them smiling up at me, waving cheerfully as though nothing was wrong.  After a moment, I then turned the picture over, peering at the smudged writing on the back.  The names were illegible, our mother's scrawled handwriting smudged by dirt and blood, but I remembered that our names had once been written there.  I took one last look at my sister's body, feeling my heart shattering slowly, then turned and walked away.  
  
  
_She's been everybody else's girl   
Maybe one day she'll be her own  
Everybody else's girl   
Maybe one day she'll be her own_  
  
  
We never really got along.  I was the pretty, popular one...she was the intelligent, talented one.  When we were very small, we had been best friends, but that was long before all the competition started.  She was two years ahead of me in Hogwarts, and yet we still competed to be the favorite in one way or another.  With her, it was being every teacher's pet.  With me, it was being every boy's best girl.  We spent so much time trying to please everyone else and steal the spotlight away from each other that the idea of acting like sisters never even occurred to us.  Neither did the thought of being ourselves.    
  
  
_And in the doorway they stay  
And laugh as violins fill with water   
Screams from the bluebells can't   
Make them go away...  
Well I'm not seventeen   
But I've cuts on my knees   
Falling down as the winter  
Takes one more cherry tree_  
  
  
We grew up, she became a Professor and I married.  Of course, my marriage was just as flimsy as all my other relationships, and it soon fell apart.  I took a job at Hogwarts, keeping my married name just to be different from her.  We didn't want to be associated with one another in any form, and the tension and hatred between us only grew as we worked together.  It seems so terrifying to think back on, now......I really hated my own sister.  And she hated me.  God, she hated me, and now she's dead, and the images still fill my mind.....I'd give anything to make them go away, anything to forget the sight of her lying dead on the ground with blood pooled around her, anything to stop the sounds of my own screams in my ears.    
  
Stumbling. Falling.  I run away a lot, nowadays.  Dumbledore knows it, and he knows my occasional flights into the woods are harmless; I'm never gone more than six hours, back in time to teach classes.  He's an understanding man.......I guess he does think I'm crazy, though.  Everyone else does, always has.  Ask my students, they'll tell you that I'm a crazy old bat.  But I don't care, not anymore.  It doesn't matter anymore.    
  
Now my thoughts are almost always disconnected, more so than they used to be.  Maybe I am crazy.  Who knows?  Maybe she knew, maybe that's why she hated me.  Of course, I was a bitch to her, too.  Maybe I deserved to be hated.  Maybe, maybe, maybe.  Sick of maybes.  Why are there never any answers?  
  
  
_She's been everybody else's girl   
Maybe one day she'll be her own  
Everybody else's girl   
Maybe one day she'll be her own  
  
And in the mist there she rides  
And castles are burning in my heart   
And as I twist I hold tight   
And I ride to work every morning   
Wondering why....._  
  
  
Sometimes, I stay too long in the woods.  I stay until it's past darkness and the fog begins to settle over the grounds.  Sometimes, I see her there.  I know the image isn't real, just a trick of the eyes.  My vision's none too keen, anyway.  Sometimes, I hear her....but that's when I run again.  If I think I hear her voice, it terrifies me, and I run back to the castle as fast as I can, back to my tower where no one can hurt me.  Back to my solitude.  
  
And still, I'm not alone there.  I try to escape into the thick clouds of incense, the curtains and veils that shroud the Divination tower.  But the picture still sits beside my bed, the back of it still stained with dirt and blood.    Enough of the grime has been brushed away, now, to reveal the names written on the back, the names of two sisters who once loved each other.  
  
**_Sibyll and Minerva._**  
      



End file.
